Dream Drawings, Affect, and Cultural Themes: Pointers from Some Tolai Data

Abstract

Traditional Tolai society was structured in ways familiar in many other parts of Melanesia. M. Stephen has argued that such states — dreams, trance, and possession — played a highly significant role in traditional Melanesia, both as religious experience and as sources of innovation. Although anthropological interest in dreams goes back a long way, it has seldom been more than intermittent and has varied in character at different times. An Australian who had become a Papua New Guinean citizen and was known to be on close terms with many Tolai, remarked to quite spontaneously on the sense of loneliness that he saw as one of their most marked characteristics. The use of graphic reproductions such as drawings to address problems of anthropological interest has been recognized, and successfully employed, in a variety of contexts, both within and outside Papua New Guinea.